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<title>Ignis Aurum Probat (Fire tests Gold) by orzaika</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763773">Ignis Aurum Probat (Fire tests Gold)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orzaika/pseuds/orzaika'>orzaika</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dungeons &amp; Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, M/M, Oops, Purple Prose, i don't know why!!! I just got in my feels about two of my dnd characters!, listen i needed to write this, pulling out the latin proverbs list again</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:26:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763773</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orzaika/pseuds/orzaika</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t like that his only solid memory of Before is that one, but beggars can’t be choosers, and adults dealing with the trauma of being ripped away from their families to become child soldiers don’t get to choose how much of their home life they remember.</p><p>Alex Prescott is left with a shattered mind and a heart that's been touched by death in the spaces after.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ignis Aurum Probat (Fire tests Gold)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When he has free time away from his responsibilities, Alex retrieves a small leather-bound notebook from the bottom-left drawer of his desk and writes what he remembers of Before. Iris insists that it’s good practice and will later help him find his childhood home, so Alex goes along with it, mostly because it will make Iris happy, but a little bit because Alex knows he’s right. The notebook itself is thicker than it needs to be, if only because he’s barely managed to fill three pages with what he remembers, and even then they are half-formed impressions rather than complete recollections. To his credit, there is one full memory on the first page: strong hands pulling him away from a squat house where two adults watch from the doorway, both in tears. He remembers a small girl squeezing past the adults to run towards him, and he remembers one of the hands letting go for a half second to send her sprawling to the ground, her ponytail coming undone. Then he is shut into a dark carriage with other children and is taken away, and that is where Before transitions into After, so Alex doesn’t bother writing the rest down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t like that his only solid memory of Before is that one, but beggars can’t be choosers, and adults dealing with the trauma of being ripped away from their families to become child soldiers don’t get to choose how much of their home life they remember.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And at least Iris assures him that his foggy impressions will help them more in the long run anyway. So when Windmere closes its gates to the outside to avoid The Disease (and that’s a whole new can of worms they have to deal with), Alex takes his notebook and Iris makes sure they have everything they need, and they leave. Alex never liked feeling trapped anyway, and Iris would have followed Alex to the ends of the earth. His notebook slowly fills with What Alex Remembers, both past and present, and Iris hums thoughtfully over scrawled words detailing fire-red hair, blue cotton, and the heat of a forge. Iris is the one who realizes that they’re looking for a small village, probably far from civilization.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Besides,” he muses with his head resting on Alex’s shoulder, brown hair turned bronze in the firelight, “I don’t think they would pull for the Seraphim Project in bigger cities.” He’s right, of course, but Alex is touchy at the mention of The Project, since they still haven’t decided what they’ll do if they encounter the ‘Holy Knights’ on the road. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Almost if he read his mind (And Alex wouldn’t be surprised, some days he swears Iris knows his own thoughts before himself-), Iris shifts to pull Alex into a hug, cradling his head and combing his fingers through unnatural pink hair. “We’ll figure it out,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to Alex’s forehead, and not for the first time Alex wishes he could borrow some of his husband’s inexhaustible optimism. For now though, Alex contents himself with watching the flickers and glows of firelight cascading over their meager setup, resigning himself to a long night.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Here is what Alex Prescott, Scourge of the Seraphim Project, remembers: brown, soft hair falling through his fingertips on a rainy night, falling to pieces over a stopped clock and feeling, rather than knowing, that Iris is gathering the broken shards of his heart to stitch together. He remembers taking this daring, ridiculous, idiotic man in his arms and thinking “<em>He saved me, he kept me, I am allowed to keep him, and damn anyone who thinks they can keep me away from him</em>,” and Alex wonders what colors it will make when he burns, consumed by whatever </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> is. And so what if Alex is only following in the echoes that Iris’s songs leave behind, because Iris is following in the fire that Alex’s ichor leaves behind, and so what-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His eyes are as big as the fucking universe and Alex knows, with a terrible and consuming dread, that he could be lost in Iris’s even bigger heart, and so what if he loves this goddamn idiot. So what if they are not meant for each other, because they have laid claim to each other’s souls just as easily as if they were their own. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chandler i couldn't stop thinking about them sorry lmao</p></blockquote></div></div>
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